Public toilet plea

There are so few public toilets in Dubai some workers claim they have no choice but to relieve themselves in public, while others queue for up to an hour to use the bathrooms available.

The lack of public restrooms, or badly-maintained alternatives, means that some areas of Bur Dubai and Deira stink of raw sewerage.

Luckily, help is on its way. Around 100 high-tech public toilets are to be built in Dubai by Dubai Municipality in cooperation with Med K&K Advertising and Marketing Company as part of a public private joint venture.

These air-conditioned toilets will have facilities like an automatic sensing system for flushing, sanitised liquid, tissue paper, hand driers and automatic doors.

The company will invest Dhs50 million to build the toilets on a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) basis with a 10-year contract with the municipality. People will have to pay Dhs2 to use the toilet, which will have automatic doors that will open once the coins are inserted.